Quotes About Joy

Vulnerability is the birthplace of love, belonging, joy, courage, empathy, and creativity. It is the source of hope, empathy, accountability, and authenticity. If we want greater clarity in our purpose or deeper and more meaningful spiritual lives, vulnerability is the path.

To love someone fiercely, to believe in something with your whole heart, to celebrate a fleeting moment in time, to fully engage in a life that doesn't come with guarantees – these are risks that involve vulnerability and often pain. But, I'm learning that recognizing and leaning into the discomfort of vulnerability teaches us how to live with joy, gratitude and grace.

If we don't allow ourselves to experience joy and love, we will definitely miss out on filling our reservoir with what we need when. . . . hard things happen.

Stay in your own lane. Comparison kills creativity and joy.

We risk missing out on joy when we get too busy chasing down the extraordinary.

You can't numb those hard feelings without numbing the other affects, our emotions. You cannot selectively numb. So when we numb those, we numb joy, we numb gratitude, we numb happiness. And then we are miserable, and we are looking for purpose and meaning, and then we feel vulnerable, so then we have a couple of beers and a banana nut muffin. And it becomes this dangerous cycle.

The dark does not destroy the light; it defines it. It's our fear of the dark that casts our joy into the shadows.

When we lose our tolerance for vulnerability, joy becomes foreboding.

We don't want to be uncomfortable. We want a quick and dirty "how-to" list for happiness. I don't fit that bill. Never have. Don't get me wrong, I'd love to skip over the hard stuff, but it just doesn't work. We don't change, we don't grow, and we don't move forward without the work. If we really want to live a joyful, connected, and meaningful life, we must talk about things that get in the way.

Joy comes to us in moments—ordinary moments. We risk missing out on joy when we get too busy chasing down the extraordinary. Scarcity culture may keep us afraid of living small, ordinary lives, but when you talk to people who have survived great losses, it is clear that joy is not a constant.

There are too many people in the world today who decide to live disappointed rather than risk feeling disappointment. This can take the shape of numbing, foreboding joy, being cynical or critical, or just never really fully engaging.

Joy is probably the most vulnerable emotion we experience in our lives.

It is not joy that makes us grateful; it is gratitude that makes us joyful. —Brother David Steindl-Rast

Laughter, song, and dance create emotional and spiritual connection; they remind us of the one thing that truly matters when we are searching for comfort, celebration, inspiration, or healing: We are not alone.

We need happy moments and happiness in our lives; however, I'm growing more convinced that the pursuit of happiness may get in the way of deeper, more meaningful experiences like joy and gratitude. I know, from the research and my experiences, that when it comes to parenting, what makes children happy in the moment is not always what leads them to developing deeper joy, grounded confidence, and meaningful connection.

Joy seems to me a step beyond happiness. Happiness is a sort of atmosphere you can live in sometimes when you're lucky. Joy is a light that fills you with hope and faith and love. — ADELA ROGERS ST. JOHNS

Get Deliberate: When I'm flooded with fear and scarcity, I try to call forward joy and sufficiency by acknowledging the fear, then transforming it into gratitude. I say this out loud: "I'm feeling vulnerable. That's okay. I'm so grateful for ____________." Doing this has absolutely increased my capacity for joy.

Twinkle lights are the perfect metaphor for joy. Joy is not a constant. It comes to us in moments—often ordinary moments. Sometimes we miss out on the bursts of joy because we're too busy chasing down extraordinary moments. Other times we're so afraid of the dark that we don't dare let ourselves enjoy the light. A joyful life is not a floodlight of joy. That would eventually become unbearable.

We feel love and we know pain. We feel hope and we know struggle. We see beauty and we survive trauma. We don't all have the protection of privilege and the luxury of anonymity. We're trying to build connected and loving lives while we pack lunches, drive carpools, go to jobs, and push into as many moments of joy as we can.

I believe that vulnerability—the willingness to show up and be seen with no guarantee of outcome—is the only path to more love, belonging, and joy.

I remember a very tender moment from that year, when Steve and I were lying on the floor watching Ellen do a series of crazy, arm-flinging, and knee-slapping dances and tumbles. I looked at Steve and said, "Isn't it funny how I just love her that much more for being so vulnerable and uninhibited and goofy. I could never do that. Can you imagine knowing that you're loved like that?" Steve looked at me and said, "I love you exactly like that.

But trading joy for less vulnerability is a deal with the devil. And the devil never pays up.

Joy comes to us in moments—ordinary moments. We risk missing out on joy when we get too busy chasing down the extraordinary.

I've also learned that the more we diminish our own pain, or rank it compared to what others have survived, the less empathic we are to everyone. That when we surrender our own joy to make those in pain feel less alone or to make ourselves feel less guilty or seem more committed, we deplete ourselves of what it takes to feel fully alive and fueled by purpose.